Cuydado

We saw a man wearing a shirt with the words “Cuydado” and a picture of a Guinea Pig on it.  In Spanish cuy means Guinea Pig and cuidado means be careful.  For the sensitive animal loving type, you might want to skip down to the third paragraph.  Just warning you… Anyway, guinea pigs are occasionally roasted whole and eaten here.  This weekend my host mom showed me a cage with the family’s guinea pigs.  Yes, they’re there to be eaten later.  I will definitely try it if served.  I haven’t quite told my host family that in the United States people have guinea pigs as pets.  They are cute, but in Ecuador they need to be careful…

The chickens need to be careful too. Remember the loud rooster?  Well, Rosa came into my room on Saturday and announced that the rooster had been killed.  I was glad I suppose.  On Sunday the rooster did not crow and as we sat around the breakfast table, we talked about how they finally killed it.  But wait!  Rosa’s sister came up to our house and told us that her rooster was missing.  Josué said he didn’t kill it and everyone looked around the table, who done it??  Even now we don’t know what happened to the rooster. 

Enough animal stories, Saturday morning Rosa, the kids, and I walked around Lumbisi.  I saw sheep, dogs, pigs, cats, chickens, goats and cows.  We picked avocados and limes from trees, and picked fresh green onion.  I saw some boxes with bees, and we picked choclo, very similar to corn.  Afterward, we got coconut ice cream bars, delicious!  I lost 2 games of checkers to Carlos and then I won a game of crazy eights and lost a game of Rummy.  Fun times all around.  That night a couple of us went to Cumbaya to hangout.  

On Sunday we went to Quito for lunch and shopping at the markets.  Little did we know, the Lumbisi bus stops running at 1pm on Sundays.  We waited for a long time before we eventually took taxis, which only cost 2 dollars ($1 because there were 2 of us) for a 15 minute trip! 

Orientation for international students included a lot of “be careful” and use common sense, as well as a long list of things not to do.  It was almost enough to justify staying in your room all day while you’re not in class.  However, the Cuydado guinea pig shirt sheds light on how to be safe in Ecuador.  You do what you need to and try to follow the “rules”, but it’s still important to have a sense of humor about it.  That’s what I’ve felt like these past few days, especially when I am out at night.  Hope that made sense… Of course, I’m very very cautious regardless of what I’m doing, no worries!

I will write about my classes next time, ciao amigos.